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    Redleg Nation Game Recap Joey Votto

    RN Recap: Reds lose to Dodgers so quietly it’s like it didn’t happen

    Wesley Jenkins 12

    Super weird that the Reds had a Friday off-day, right? That doesn’t happen too often. I coulda sworn there was a game scheduled for today too. Checked the Reds Twitter to make sure, but there were only two tweets. One of Nick Senzel making a catch:

    And the other, two hours later, of Jose Iglesias doing something cool:

    Doesn’t look like any game I remember watching, but I guess it had to be from another day because I most assuredly did not watch the Reds play baseball today.

    FinalRHE
    Los Angeles Dodgers (29-16)6100
    Cincinnati Reds (20-24)030
    W: Hill (1-1) L: DeSclafani (2-2)
    FanGraphs Win Probability | Statcast | Box Score | Game Thread

    THE GOOD

    — The game only took 2 hours and 27 minutes, so I guess that’s nice. Games go a bit quicker when only one team decides to show up. I only worry that somewhere, Rob Manfred is furiously scribbling: “15 team league…no one ever plays against each other…only simulated games.”

    — The Reds weren’t no-hit! Joey Votto extended his hitting to six games with a fight-em-off bloop single in the fourth. Eugenio Suarez followed with another single but nothing more happened in the inning. Curt Casali had a broken bat single in the eighth, long after the bells had rung.

    — Cody Reed, in his triumphant return to the major leagues, pitched two innings in relief with three strikeouts and a run allowed. To be fair to Reed, the run likely shouldn’t have scored because Cody Bellinger reached on a drop third strike before coming home on a Enrique Hernandez single.

    THE BAD

    — Anthony DeSclafani did not have it today, serving up home runs to Corey Seager, Joc Pederson, and Max Muncy and doubles to  Bellinger and Alex Verdugo. DeSclafani exited after four innings, sitting in a 4-0 hole. As the Dodgers announcers so helpfully pointed out after Pederson’s home run, the Reds have yet to comeback from a hole greater than two runs this season. Today did not break that streak.

    — Zach Duke allowed the Reds fourth home run of the day, serving up a solo shot to Bellinger in his only inning of work. Duke now has more runs allowed than strikeouts on the season.

    — This game (yes, it did happen) did not feel especially bad or disheartening while watching. It just felt….bleh. Truly nothing happened. The Dodgers hit some home runs, and the Reds never did anything more than strikeout a bunch (13 times to be exact). Oh well, we won the series against the Cubs. That’s enough to get me to watch again tomorrow.

    Up Next

    Dodgers vs. Reds, 4:10 EST

    Walker Buehler (4-0, 4.15 ERA) vs. Tyler Mahle (0-5, 3.97 ERA)

    Previous Dodgers vs. Reds – May 17, 2019
    Next Reds pitcher Alex Wood may not be ready until late July
    Wesley Jenkins
    Wesley - or Wes, whichever really - first fell in love with the Reds because of Ken Griffey Jr.'s smooth swing and shining smile. Ever since that first infatuation, it has been tortured fandom broken up by a blown 2-0 lead to the Giants and a Roy Halladay no-hitter - but that's neither here nor there. The only things Wes loves as much as the Reds are pancakes, flannels, and Vanderbilt baseball. You can find more of his writing at wesjenks.com or his carefully curated retweets @_wesjenks.

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    12 Responses

    1. Teams are generally going to have a losing record against winning teams, especially early in the year….. That’s why they are winning teams. They’ve won. And since you’ve played them, that means you’ve lost. It’s like finding the player splits in wins and losses. In almost every single case the stats are very good in the wins and very bad in the losses. Because when a guy hits, it helps the team score, and when you score, you are more likely to win that game. But it’s not exactly useful data.

      There are always a few teams every decade that win while having a negative run differential. Heck, the 1987 Twins won the World Series while being outscored on the season. But by-and-large, teams that score more than they allow in a season wind up with more wins than losses. Pointing out that there are outliers to that doesn’t really do much.

      1. It means that the Reds lost some games. The Reds just beat the Cubs 2 out of 3. What does that mean in context of the first place team in the NL Central? Not much. Just like the fact that the Reds won those games. It simply means that they won those games.

    2. Team did seem to sleep walk through the game. Could be more blue than red in stands. As I talked to a dodger fan (before the game) that was worried Hill has struggled this year. I told him the reds hitters have made struggling pitchers look like cy young winners this year. To bad I was right in what I thought and saw today. No energy like they are burner out already. Seems like none if the players gave a feel for the game. Puig and most if the team looked awful and confused at the plate. Senzel looked the least confused on the team. They all seem to thinking at the plate and not just, see ball hit ball.

      1. Agree with you.
        The Reds sure didn’t look like major league players against a guy who threw mostly two pitches, AND a fastball in the low nineties.
        Votto looked absolutely befuddled after his first at bat, shaking his head, muttering to himself as he walked back to the dugout.
        As you said the Reds looked confused at the plate, and had no idea how to hit against Hill.

    3. That doesn’t do us much good, still, though. The Reds aren’t the only team to have beaten up on an opponent. Every team is going to have their fair share of blowout wins and blowout losses. They tend to even out in the long run. It’s why despite those games, the pythag record thing generally holds up for the large, large majority of teams.

      I think it’s a bit too early in the year to be certain about the whole pythag record thing. The sample isn’t large enough yet. But breaking it down even further really makes it less useful, too. If the Reds continue to have the same ratio of runs scored/runs allowed that they have to this point in the season, the odds are strong they will win more games (a lot more, probably) than they lose. The things we need to be sure to remember, though, is that they may not keep up the same ratio of runs scored/runs allowed moving forward, and thus the current pythag record shouldn’t just be “pushed forward” as to what this team will be. It’s not quite “gamblers fallacy”, but kind of plays along the same lines. The odds don’t change simply because what’s happened before went against those odds.

    4. I think you misunderstood much of what I said.

      The B-R link you provided isn’t projecting forward runs scored or runs allowed, so no, it doesn’t at all fly in the face of anything there. All that it shows their is record moving forward. Did you read at all how they come to those? I’m guessing you didn’t. That record is based on them using the Reds last 100 games, then running that through a simulation based on the other teams they plays last 100 games. It’s May 18th. Why games played by an entirely different team last August and September of 2018 are coming into play for games in June/July/August/September of 2019 is silly. You’d be far better off looking to what Baseball Prospectus is doing in their projections, by using the actual teams and expected performance of the players on the current team, than what Baseball-Reference is doing. https://legacy.baseballprospectus.com/odds/

    5. Reading some of the comments is like listening to Thom Brennaman call a baseball game. In the cubs series all he could talk about was how great the cubs players were and how constantly negative he is about the Reds players. Of course more of the same last night. He literally made a prediction that the entire weekend was going to suck based off a half of a game against the dodgers. This comment section is becoming the equivalent of Thom calling a game and Chris trying to be positive in the face of all his negativity.

      1. You forgot to add how great everything is to Thom. That new Kroger store is great. Happy 88 years young to so & so, what a great guy. You know good ole Fred in the ticket office, he’s from the great state of Kentucky. As for the Reds, they dropped some very winnable games vs A’s & the Giants. All last place teams. I still can’t get over wheeling Hernandez back for day game after night when Hughes and Lorenzen were available. So in conclusion *applause from all* until the Reds get 5 games over .500, I can’t get too excited.

    6. Reds didn’t show up at the plate which has happened a ton of times already.Couldn’t hit 90 mph up and waved at the 75 mph curve down.Wood has been throwing the same thing for years and Ward should have and may have told his guys what to expect and how best to attack.Bottom line is whatever the hitters are taking to the plate in regards to a plan isn’t working.Maybe this team just can’t hit consistently enough,maybe its a new philosophy they haven’t caught on to or maybe they never will catch on.Minor league help as usual is two or three years away so you go with what you came to the dance with because there isn’t anybody else to challenge them for playing time.Best way for me to look at how good a team is or will be is to ask would anybody else want this player or that player.Would anybody want any of our position players?Senzel,Suarez,Winker maybe because of what they have already done in Suarez and continue to do or the potential based on minor league performance and age of the other two guys.Thats it.If the Reds some how start to hit then we will have something to cheer about if not its win a couple then fall asleep at the plate and lose a couple.It just is what it but its still Go Reds because well I don’t know any other way to go.Over fifty years of following this team and almost 30 years now since a world series win.May happen again but I am getting old so hurry up guys.

    7. jreis: I just looked at the pitching staff of the 1982 Reds. This pitching staff is much, much better than that team’s, outside of Mario Soto. Seaver was 37 and had a 5.50 ERA so he was on the downside of his career. The bullpen was a mess as well. That roster also had the likes of Paul Householder, Larry Biitner, Mike Vail, Tom Lawless, Rafael Landestoy, Dave Van Gorder, and Clint Hurdle. This team may not be all that good, but I think they are far and away better, at least on paper, than the 1982 Reds.

    8. “we will need stud free agents to be highly competitive”

      jries, I know how you feel and agree with your thoughts except the “free agent” one.
      Reds ownership won’t hire “stud free agents”. Ownership is well entrenched into the “small market” thinking along with the benefits of the teams growth in actual value. The Reds need another stud starter ($25 Mil), a stud outfielder ($25 Mil.), a stud catcher ($12/15 Mil), and a power infielder ($21/25 Mil). My rough estimate says we need to spend at least $80 to $100 Mil on four players. If you add the other 21 players to the payroll, ownership would be looking at $155/$180 Million a year.

      Bob C. would be hospitalized for the rest of his life.

    9. Well, Duke has a 1.23 ERA and 1.09 WHIP over his last 7 appearances.

      Pitching is not the issue, even if Bell uses the pitching a bit curiously at times.

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